Standings as of 2018-09-25

In the 2019 Season, we have 1 technical upset in 22 ranked matches (95.45% success rate) across 4 events. It’s still early. Additionally, there have been three JV matches entered into the Records.

The Gonzalez System is a computer ranking model similar to Elo and is a rating exchange system based on research performed by World Rugby. It has been adapted by the NCDA to the demands of College Dodgeball, but can be tuned and customized endlessly to incorporate accurate data. It has been used to help determine seeds for the Nationals bracket since Nationals 2014, and was used exclusively for the Nationals 2017 and 2018 bracket.

Technical Upset Spotlight

A technical upset in the Gonzalez System is when a lower rated team defeats a higher rated team. The overall success rate of the system is currently 80.42% based on 307 technical upsets in 1568 ranked matches played since 2010-09-25.

Since our opening matches two weeks ago, we had four events with just one technical upset over 22 ranked matches.

UK def MSU 2-1

42.494 def 43.877, exchanging 1.238

In our only upset of the past two weeks and in the opening matches of the 2019 Season, UK took an upset against Michigan State on their home court (and still one of my all time favorite courts I’ve visited in the NCDA). With a rating gap of -2.383, and the usual home court advantage of one point, this was a middle of the road technical upset in historical terms. One of those rating adjustments that usually happen at the start of the season. So far that’s only been seen with UK and MSU, but we have plenty of college dodgeball ahead of us. The upset ranked 140th of 307 technical upsets, in the 54th percentile.

Net Rating Changes

Rating Changes

Pre

Post

Change

Towson

46.336

49.652

3.316

Miami

42.022

43.153

1.131

GVSU

54.519

55.396

0.877

UK

43.073

43.732

0.659

SVSU

47.730

47.974

0.244

CMU

52.003

52.022

0.019

JMU

46.227

46.198

-0.029

OSU

40.664

40.616

-0.048

UVA

41.460

41.148

-0.313

PSU

40.684

40.116

-0.567

UMD

38.453

37.502

-0.951

BSU

37.099

36.016

-1.083

Kent

47.179

45.722

-1.456

MSU

44.438

42.639

-1.799

We’ve only had two weekends of events, but 14 teams have played matches of roughly 38 active Member Teams. These fourteen span many regions too.

Notably, Towson is on a tear at 6 for 6, garnering them a healthy rating boost to start out the Season. Towson’s historical highest rating was 49.875, which they briefly held last year at Nationals 2018. After defeating MSU 3-2 on Day 1 and climbing to a career high, Towson’s next match was a loss to GVSU 3-0 and a short dip to 48.831. Towson would end the 2018 Season with 48.121, and they’ve already managed to boost past this in just six games of play.

For comparison, the Nationals 2015 JMU squad reached a career high (and East Coast region high) of 52.364 after beating Towson 3-0 in the Quaternary finals. JMU would go on to narrowly lose to CMU 2-1 OT, closing off the 2015 Season with 51.475.

Oh, and I hope Miami sees that winning games does wonders to increase a rating. :p Just needed to give yourselves a little time. Miami has really come into their own, they are half a point from a career all time high. We had done a case study determining what would happen if Miami started out at the Initial Rating (40.000) when they returned in 2017, instead of recouping their slightly lower rating (38.086). The result was that Miami fared marginally better by taking the lower rating and the League fared better with fewer upsets. As time goes on, those old rating exchanges become much less of a factor and fade into statistical oblivion. At current, that difference is a few hundreths and there are fewer Upsets leaving a healthier overall system.

We often say that six matches is enough to determine an accurate rating, and that with 8-12 wins the lowest tier can advance to the top tier.

* denotes a provisional rating (< 6 matches)
† (will be displayed starting at season halfpoint) denotes a team that has not played three games this season, the required minimum games needed to qualify for Nationals.